MamaBear

What a gem!

Revisado: 04-24-25

I’m so glad I listened to this! It’s a perfect little jewel of a story - a lifetime of love, longing, loss, and courage in an hour. Gorgeous, and perfectly performed.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Excellent and unusual

Revisado: 04-13-25

I’m having a hard time describing this novel - it’s at once an exercise in synchronicity and zen, and a gritty, emotionally charged noir detective story.

Set in New Orleans after Katrina, the sense of decay and abandonment is inescapable. It’s a hard place to find hope in. Fortunately, Claire isn’t looking for hope - she’s looking for the truth at the bottom of a mystery. Or perhaps many mysteries, piled atop one another, that began clear back in her childhood.

Then there’s this book, which informs her insight, intuition, and training. Written by a French detective, this book has a way of finding itself to those who might need it - though few, if any, fully understand it.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Claire’s POV is her ability to see people as complex beings; not victims of circumstance, nor purely selfish perpetrators, these characters are both and neither. They act from complex motives, even as they are acted on by their surroundings and circumstances. As the narrative character, Claire sees this and helps us see it as well.

At once mystical and down to earth, painful and uplifting, this is a novel that will stay with me longer than most. I enjoyed listening to it, and look forward to the next book continuing this character’s story. The narration is excellent, too.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Love this series! Better than Neverwhere

Revisado: 03-29-25

I love this series so much. The stories are whimsical, but the emotions are real. The central character, Peter Grant, is someone I’m enjoying getting to know. He’s flawed, and human, and charming. His wry POV keeps making me laugh.

The twists and turns keep coming, with lots of sub-mysteries that unwind more slowly. The slowly building cast of supporting characters is diverse, quirky, and interesting.

And the narration is simply grand. From West African accents, to multiple English dialects, each character is easily recognizable by their voice alone.

The chapter music actually adds to the experience, rather than detracting from it like music does in so many audiobooks.

I’m hooked!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Don’t miss this one

Revisado: 03-23-25

This is Stephen Graham Jones at his absolute best, writing what just might be both a vampire story, and a contender for the Great American Novel.

This is the story of the bloody, cruel, ugly birth of the United States - and the horror implicit in “manifest destiny.” It’s also about vampires, and corruption, and an Indian who can’t die.

It’s brutal, and often slyly funny.

It contains a wealth of Blackfeet culture and language. It’s a long look back in love and sorrow at the final days of the Blackfeet and the world they used to live in.

It’s the best horror I’ve read or listened to in a long time, and it deserves to be read outside of the horror genre as well.

The audio version is superb. The voices and sound design bring so much to the story, that I’d recommend the audiobook over the book.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter should be read alongside Blood Meridian, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Beloved, and Invisible Man…. as well as Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot and Stoker’s Dracula.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

That was a ride!

Revisado: 03-03-25

At one point or another, I suspected every character of everything. That was one long ride on a twister!

Fantastic voice acting, as one would expect from this cast. Always a treat to hear David Tennant, but Louise Brealey carries this performance, and does it spectacularly.

Highly recommended.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Some things are inexplicable…

Revisado: 02-08-25

… sometimes we are the inexplicable things, ourselves.

This remains one of my favorite King stories, specifically because there’s no real ending or explanation.

Where did the Buick 8 come from? Where did its driver go? Is it sentient? Why can’t all alcoholics recover? How do we live with loss and keep moving into our future? What’s on the other side of forever? Why do we do the things we do?

What happens next?

We keep discovering that every new answer we confirm holds a dozen new questions. This book is about that, as much as it’s about a grieving boy, an inexplicable car, and a barracks of state police officers who cope with both to the best of their ability.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Too many loose ends

Revisado: 02-03-25

As a reader, I’m fine with ambiguity that leaves you pondering a story’s meaning. But leaving the conditions of two of the major characters unknown at the end of the book isn’t great. The motivation of the killer is also unclear.

I feel like there should have been another chapter between the final chapter and the epilogue. That’s how much information is missing from the ending. It feels like the author just hit her word count and stopped.

It was an interesting book, and I was engaged enough to stay with the multiple timeframes and character POVs. Unfortunately, that made the lack of a solid ending even more frustrating.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Tragic

Revisado: 01-28-25

Classic tragedy as noir police procedural. Beautifully written, convincingly narrated, with an excellent soundscape.

Being a modern noir, it isn’t set up to draw us into the characters and make us cry for them. There’s a sense of remove, as though watching the events on a stage.

However, in the tradition of classic tragedy, it made me ponder the corruption of what’s best in humanity. It’s melancholy.

If you aren’t familiar with the music mentioned here, that the main character plays for himself, it’s worth looking it up - especially Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, or Songs for Dead Children. *That* is likely to make most of us weep.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Entertaining ethical quandary

Revisado: 01-26-25

I really enjoyed this story. It set up a series of questions about science and ethics in a way that was both interesting and entertaining. I was truly curious to find out what the character’s final decision would be - and I wasn’t disappointed.

Paget Brewster was a perfect casting choice. All of the acting was excellent.

Overall, this was a great story and just the right length to tell it in.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Well, that got weird

Revisado: 12-10-24

There were so many twists and turns, that by the end of the book the beginning didn’t make a lot of sense.

That was… interesting. Perhaps overly long, but interesting.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña